Modern aircraft are often powered by a propulsion system that includes a gas turbine engine housed within an aerodynamic streamlined nacelle. The major portions of an engine include a fan, compressor, combustor and turbine section. In the turbine portion of the engine, there are static parts and rotating parts. The static boundary at the tip of the rotating parts or blades are referred to as shrouds.
One of the most demanding materials applications in current technology is found in turbine components used in jet aircraft engines, which require high strength materials to operate in corrosive, oxidative environments at high operating temperatures. The higher the operating temperature of an engine, the greater its efficiency, and the more power it can produce from each gallon of fuel. There is therefore an incentive to operate such engines at as high a temperature as possible.
There has been an extraordinary amount of effort over the past 45 years to develop methods for applying materials that can be used in high temperature engine applications. The compositions of such materials are carefully designed to maintain their desirable properties during use at the high temperature of engine operations. The high pressure turbine shroud sections are comprised of materials that are tolerant to these high temperatures, which are in the neighborhood of 2000° F. to 2200° F., since such materials form a boundary for the flow of the hot gases of combustion.
Since the turbine shrouds are located within the turbine regions of the engine radially outboard and immediately adjacent of the blades, the turbine blades can rub against the shrouds. This rubbing wears away the interfering materials, the less abrasive material of the two experiencing greater wear, whether such material is part of the turbine blade or the opposed turbine shroud during high temperature operation and power excursions.
Shrouds that are subject to rubs from blade tips are made from various materials. These shrouds may be made with coatings or may be uncoated. The shrouds damage the blade tips if they are higher strength than the opposed turbine blade, and can cause excessive wear if the shroud surface is too abrasive. Frequently, the shrouds have poor environmental resistance due to processing steps taken to control initial geometric tolerances and clearances near the blade tips, as the tolerance between the blade tips and the shroud is desirably kept to a minimum in order to minimize the leakage of gas through the clearance between the blade tips and shroud. Blade replacement or repair is significantly more expensive and difficult than replacing the shroud, so it is desirable to provide a system which preferentially abrades the shroud rather than the blade tips. Finding a suitable compromise between blade life and shroud life has been difficult, particularly in engine hot section application.
The high pressure turbine shroud, and the high pressure turbine blade form the portion of the flowpath where gas stream energy is converted to mechanical energy used to sustain engine operation. The high pressure turbine shroud includes a region known as the shroud or stator rub area, because it is in this section of the shroud where the turbine blades typically contact the shroud. If the stator or shroud rub area does not fit tightly to the blade tip, gas can escape in the gap between the shroud and blade tip without imparting its energy with the rotor. Such a poor fit creates a loss of engine efficiency.
Previously, the problem of how to seal the stator or shroud rub areas and the blade tips have been addressed in a number of different ways. Bare shrouds have been used. These bare shrouds typically have been comprised of expensive high strength superalloys. These alloys alone, while engineered to survive in a hot turbine, have insufficient environmental protection to prevent severe environmental attack for long term service in the turbine portion of a gas turbine engine. In addition, because of their strength, they can cause blade damage.
Shrouds may be manufactured with environmental coatings. However, these coatings can cause blade wear, complicate subsequent repair, and interfere with establishing the desired tight initial dimensional tolerance. Finally, blades may be manufactured with abrasive tips, however such blades are difficult to produce and provide only temporary protection. Such blade tips have a very short life at operating temperatures. The rub area of the shroud is generally abraded to a greater extent than the expected reach of the blades because of the natural thermal expansion of the blades relative to the stator due to high temperature operation, unbalance loads, and large maneuver loads, particularly during take-off and landing. Thus, at lower operating temperatures, such as those experienced at cruise speed, the rubbed area can result in a larger gap between the blades and the shroud.
Ceramic coatings are applied as thermal insulation for metal superalloy parts. These ceramic coatings, when used in combination with an environmental coating, protect the substrate alloy from rapid oxidation and corrosion caused by the flow of hot engine gases over the alloy. In the past, ceramic coatings, such as zirconium oxide (ZrO2) and aluminum oxide (Al2O3), otherwise known as alumnina, have been applied to stator rub areas of the shroud using a thermal spray process. However, the processes used to deposit the ceramics have produced a dense layer that is not very porous. Such a dense layer is extremely abrasive and has a tendency to wear away the turbine blade tips that come into contact with it.
Recent developments in the field of surface treatments to metal and intermetallic substrates have led to the development of a new type of metal/metal oxide wear material. The various forms of this wear material are capable of withstanding a variety of high temperature erosive and corrosive environments. In one of these types of wear materials, the composition is a blend of aluminum and alumina.
However, the aluminum/alumina wear material does not have the physical and chemical properties that would lend the aluminum/alumina wear material to be an effective wear material for stator wear areas. The aluminum/alumina material is rather abrasive and is not an effective thermal barrier coating, since the metal phase has high thermal conductivity. In addition, the metallic component of the material would melt as the operating temperature of the engine is approached, the melting temperature of aluminum being about 1220° F.
Because of the problems with existing aluminum/alumina wear materials, and difficulties with ceramic densities deposited with existing thermal spray processes, there is a continuing need for further improvements to methods of applying stator rub materials. The present invention fulfils this need and further provides related advantages.